Understanding Agile Once For All

There are countless interpretations about Agile, but one concept is the essence.

Photo by pine watt on Unsplash

I write this article because I have seen, and also suffered, a lot of confusion about Agile. There are several practices and several flavors, and some may seem more or less Agile. If we also consider the expressions like Mini-Waterfall or Water-Scrum-Fall, it is hard to assess what is Agile and what we should expect. So, what all practices have in common?, and what is the essence of Agile that make it more valuable than Waterfall?

My first experience with Agile

The first time that I applied an Agile practice was in the early 2001. I had a problem with a challenging design, and I often suffered over-complexity. Until that moment, the only way to design that I knew was creating all the class diagrams in front, and then, the code. Basically, Waterfall.

Because I needed a solution, I read the “Applying UML and Patterns” of Craig Larman, edition of 1997. This book suggested a methodology called “Use-Case Driven Design”. Instead of creating an upfront design, it proposed a spiral development of continuous improvement, each iteration implemented one new use case. One of the sentences of the book said: “Each development cycle should take between two weeks and two…